


Mother, I am going to Suna.

by saderaladon



Category: Naruto
Genre: Divorce is the best thing that can happen to a woman, F/M, I have feminism in my veins, I've no idea what genre this is, It's slightly fetishistic, Post-Canon, Sakura has changed over the years, Sasori is dead and can't resist, This houswife is desperate, Translation, You might squint that I don't like Sasuke, You'd be right, and not slightly, coz I am, like a lot actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-17 00:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10582215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saderaladon/pseuds/saderaladon
Summary: A blossoming relationship between Sakura, a bitter housewife who has a crap husband, and Sasori, a dead puppet.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Мама, я еду в Суну.](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/282741) by hatschi waldera. 



> The idea of Sakura and Sasori being together always perplexed me. I know that having one fight is actually enough for a pairing to exist, and they also have matching hair. So it is written in the stars and so on. But I always wondered what it should be like so that I'd think: hm, it actually works. That's how I wrote this: as my take on the problem. The solution, essentially, is that yeah, she is thirty five and he can do nothing about it. :)
> 
> It's a translation of my own story. It has that many layers of past tenses in it that my brain exploded when I was trying to fit it into the narrow confinement of the English grammar. And I am sure I've fucked it up. So yeah... English is not my native language, the thing is not betad, if you feel the urge to correct any particular usage of Past Perfect, please, do so, because I apparently can't.

Sakura didn't remember of him on her own: it was Naruto who reminded her. Five years ago, on Sasuke's thirtieth birthday. Naruto had to cheat, lie and steal to get him to come back to the village for the occasion. The usual style: if you won't come, I'll find you and drag you here, no matter what. Sasuke came. He actually visited quite regularly for his own birthdays, from time to time for their daughter's, never for hers. They — Naruto, Hinata, Ino, Kiba, Lee, others too — gathered then in their house, she put all sorts of things on the table, decorated the room, played the woman of the estate, laughed and smiled. Naruto guffawed and started to talk about the past at some point, he acquired this habit over the years, and soon everybody joined in and told stories, not about themselves, of course, Naruto was the only one unabashed enough to do that, but about the others: who'd killed who, with what jutsu, how fun it had been, how scary, how sweet the victory had tasted. There was nothing to be told about Sakura, though. For too many years all her victories lied in the area of flowers in the pot, chicken, wrapped and baked in the foil, and clean shiny windows. She never would've thought life would turn that way, but it did: she rarely went to the hospital nowadays — ha, nowadays, more like three years — almost as rarely as Sasuke came home, things were going quiet, not much need for the doctors, and as for her daughter, she'd chosen another path, so Sakura couldn't train her either. No, of course, as a child she'd say it all to the last word, how she'll become the best kunoichi ever and make their village famous, she'd follow the adults around, like all other children did, she'd pretend to be on a mission and so on. She had even started in the Academy, enthusiastically so, but then, when she turned ten — and four months, Sakura makes a point of remembering all the dates — Sasuke, who'd came back unexpectedly, offered them to join him, go on a trip together, all three of them: Sasuke, their daughter and even her, Sakura. Sakura'd never thought she lacked experience, it couldn't be true of any shinobi, but on that trip the world opened its doors to her, showed many new corners. They saw enormous cities with roads flying up to the skies, bizarre buildings, all glass and metal, hasty little ships, running from one green island to another… Her daughter saw the bridge: formidable, huge structure, crossing the vastness of the bay, but elegant, almost ethereal in its grace. Two weeks after they'd returned home — Sasuke was gone again by that time — she said she was going to be an architect. Two more months — and she terminated her classes at the Academy and became a student of an old engineer who lived on the next street. Sakura immediately wrote to Sasuke about her decision. He didn't reply and later, when visiting, said nothing on the matter too. Anyway, life of a shinobi wasn't Sakura's life anymore. She had no part in this type of struggle for a very long time. And, maybe, her smile betrayed her feelings, turning from happy into sad, or maybe it was something else, but Naruto suddenly started praising her, he even bounced off his seat. The stories were mostly about saving somebody, healing some wounds. She blushed, waving him away: what kind of achievement is that? A great one, Naruto kept insisting. How is it worse to save somebody than to kill somebody? But it still seemed like that. Well, no, of course, not, life is much better than death, after all, but there was something missing there, in all that talk about bandages and managing the hospital effectively. Maybe it lacked that usual thing, that toughness, which was on the mind of every child in every hidden village. To kill someone. Not heal them, but kick their sorry asses. And then Naruto reminded her of the puppet master. It all came back to her at once: the amber eyes, calculating, cruel and mad, and that weird numbness in her body she felt when Chiyo-Baa guided her, and desperate swings of her tightly clutched fists… It all came back — and went away in a second. It was long ago. So what, Naruto snorted: old stories are legends.  
And since that day — five years, five: her daughter, briliant young woman, applied and entered the University of Architecture of the Land of Fire, Sasuke visited and went away again, always went away, eight times, Sakura tidied things up in the basement and learned crocheting — she was thinking about him, sometimes, at odd moments. Why about him? Why not about something more important, why not about the war, they all had had their fair share of being tough and cool in the war, why not about that antidote she'd created to save Kankuro? Why was it him exactly she remembered about? About his eyes going bleak and that barely audible rattle in his chest, like in a broken clock, about the puppets, lying around and motionless, about her fists, aching and covered in her own blood? Was it really the only time she, Sakura, kicked somebody's ass? Or maybe just the first? Anyhow, the master of puppets visited her from time to time, and gradually the visits became more and more frequent, more and more lengthy. Definitely more so than Sasuke's visits home. By the time the day came — the day, when her daughter approached her — the only thing left to do was to provide the master of puppets with his own fork at the table. Then again, he probably didn't eat.  
But her daughter approached her. Mother, Iamgoingtosuna, she said. There was that huge construction sight in Suna, antiseismic, nature-friendly, so very modern thing, it was a Project, with a capital "P", according to her daughter. Her face would just light up when she talked about it. Mother, I am going to Suna, she said. In three days, for a month, don't worry, they'll meet us there.  
Iamgoingtosunatoo, Sakura replied. And her daughter, there could've been no doubt about it, rebelled instantly: please don't, mother, don't be like this, mother, I'll be fine, mother. I am going to Suna too, Sakura said it again. Not with you, I have a business of my own.  
Kankuro, famous and bulky — the last bit filled her heart with joy: Sakura hadn't gained any weight, nothing like that, but had grown limp somehow, gutless, but now it seemed to be alright, like she really could, had the right to — was stunned by her request. He asked her why and why exactly that. He wanted her to clarify things up a bit: did she needed him, Kankuro, or would she be okay with somebody else? Sakura would, actually, but she felt suddenly stubborn, maybe on purpose, so that the next request — not a request even, a demand — wouldn't sound off, so that he'd expect her to act strange. He didn't ask why she came to claim what was hers after so many years, even though she could clearly see, even underneath all that ridiculous purple paint, that he wanted to. But he didn't and she sighed, relieved: she was preparing to answer with something illogical, something Naruto-style, but she wasn't ready to, she didn't have Naruto's spirit.  
The master of puppets — the puppet of master of puppets — looked young. Way younger than how Sakura remembered him. Most likely it was the eyes: empty, not mad enough, not mad at all. She spent the whole day with him, first listening to Kankuro and following his instructions, concentrating chakra — oh, it is working — in her fingers and twitching the puppet, awkwardly at first, then quite sure of herself — Kankuro was a decent teacher and she was an outstanding student — and then alone, in silence, her mind swarming with thoughts, her hand constantly trying to tuck an unruly lock away, the one that kept falling on the forehead. Not on hers, she wore her hair tied in a tight not, the puppet master's. When the twilight fell on Suna she took his fingers in her hand — delicate little things, really, she was the same age now as he was on that day when he died, when he stopped with that barely audible rattle, like the one in a broken clock, and he was forever fifteen — and counted them one by one, all ten, then pulled a piece of paper, a pen and an envelope out of her bag and wrote a letter to Sasuke. Not with her fingers, but with his, the puppet master's, in a funny handwriting, like a child would have, with the letters too big and too round. They had an agreement with Sasuke, that if anything happens she can send a mesage for him, using an address he'd left her. Sasuke, of course, meant something else by "anything", a war or a revolution, something that would require a heroic return of heroic Uchiha, but she always wrote what she thought was necessary. And this time she did the same: come home, you'll need to sign the documents, we'll have joint custody.  
Sakura was going to become the best mistress of puppets ever. Sakura was going to kick ass. And her eyes will be so mad.


End file.
